


a choice ends in permanence.

by beguileds



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, and i said fuck canon bc the pevensies dont leave after the voyage, bc narnia is inclusive and doesn't work by earths standards, i just had feelings and i had to vent them apparently so here's a 15 minute 1 shot, listen. they're in love, who the fuck needs bigotry in their fantasy world? not me!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 00:59:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19031503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beguileds/pseuds/beguileds
Summary: i'm here to vent about my favourite pairings in 15 minute one shots. fluff incoming.





	a choice ends in permanence.

The sun is as lazy as the eyes that follow its descent below the horizon. Soft scents of ocean breeze, something warm and sweet from the palace kitchens behind, and the oil Caspian is so fond of using in his hair to wash.  _ Cherry blossoms, _ Edmund thinks with his dark eyes faltering in their path,  _ and vanilla pods. _ Springtime spoils his lover would bottle and use only sparingly  --- grand occasions, blooming season feasts or to laud over foreign dignitaries. And yet here he sits, his rich skin soaking up the last of the light, his hand firm in Edmund’s, smelling of seasons long gone, looking like a painting the Just king barely remembers from one of his father’s old arts books.

 

Silence is never uncomfortable. Language is never only in tongue. Caspian’s thumb traces circles around Edmund’s knuckles, his eyes firm on the horizon while Edmund’s betray one beauty for another. Language settles in thumbprints. Language settles in eyes. In the way they linger, on the collar of Caspian’s tunic, where Edmund half expects the bruising of a month ago to lay brandished still upon brown canvas. It was not, naturally. Just like the smears of red left his own skin near days after departure. They were mourned, then their ghosts traced by the very fingers the Seafarer held captive. Edmund does not mind the tightness of his grasp. He knows he fears the loss --- an invisible doorway in a thicket, or a literal one right around the corner. Living in the moment was something they simply had to indulge in, despite the constant soft words that would leave Edmund’s lips each time the worry had prodded the other’s mind.

 

_ “I barely remember England, anymore”, he’d start, his lips brushing skin as he’d speak, “I chose to stay, didn’t I? I still choose that, Caspian. I’ll always choose Narnia. You.” _

 

His lips say something different, now, as his head had lowered enough for his mouth to press a soft kind of kiss to the fabric covering Caspian’s shoulder. They speak softly, in a sort of reverence, and Caspian finds himself blinking away from the ocean at the sincerity of it all.

 

_ It’s his name. _ Uttered soft and slow, as if the king were tasting the Summer’s new batch of wine. Spoken until he feared a name became noise alone, no meaning but the tone in which Edmund had conveyed it with. It’s his way ---  a silver tongued soldier of a thousand words, using only one. The only one that mattered in that moment, among shells and the skittering of crabs and the gentle croon of the fire bird perched to the wayside. Edmund speaks it --- truly, prayer now, as his lips trail the embroidery that led to his collar and then abandoned altogether, seeking solace in the warmth of sun-soaking skin. Caspian’s jaw, his cheek, the very corner of his lips.

 

The days of stolen kisses and trembling hands have been lost to the boards of a ship that barely sees water now. Lost to people they no longer were, nor no longer had to be. They had grown, broken from cocoon to blossom in a throne that was both equally and rightfully their own. Grown into crowns, into adults, into lovers, and into betrotheds. They’ve bloomed to this, for this, these lazy affections in the casual light of the melting sun and slowly-lighting torches. To the whispers of maids and lords alike. And they bolster, wearing each nod, each smile with pride. There was no need to not  --- For if Narnia is home, and home is the arms of a lover, what would a world be if it held contempt for itself in all its beauty?


End file.
